Simon Callow says Charles Dickens was as much a performer as he was a novelist
as actor speaks at 200th anniversary celebration event.

Charles Dickens was as much a performer as he was a novelist, according to Four Weddings And A Funeral star and biographer Simon Callow.

Callow, author of Charles Dickens And The Great Theatre Of The World, was in Portsmouth today to help the Hampshire city celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of its most famous son.

During the day he read an excerpt from David Copperfield at a service at St Mary's Church which was also attended by actress Sheila Hancock.

Describing the event as "a dangerously moving occasion", he said: "I really made the strong decision to come to the place where he was born rather than to Westminster Cathedral where he never wanted to be."

Mr Callow explained that he had become as inspired by Dickens' role as a showman as by his stories.